What makes a Final Fantasy Hero: Part 3.1: "Deaths"

This is a three part series about the main heroes of each Final Fantasy. I be talking about the main series and their sequels/prequels/spin-offs. I was never into the MMO FF games so be skipping 11 and 14. I haven't played 15 or Type-0 yet so I won't discuss them.

I posted this as a joke to friends a long time ago. It was make fun of certain cliches that started to become noticeable with the main characters in the game.

One thing I notice is that most of these characters is that they "die" at the game's ending or during the final battle.

Be warned, there are major spoilers in every game I mention. So if you haven't played a certain Final Fantasy that you plan to play in the future. Skip the character entry.



I should mention this, in the game of Dissidia, there is a war between the forces of good and evil. Towards the end of the game, it was reveal that the heroes are in a endless cycle of war. They lose the war, they get revived by an dragon spirit with no memories of the previous cycle and fight the villains, only to lose again.

In the 13th cycle, they were able to to defeat the villains and return to their homeworlds.

This basically applies to every hero in the mainline FF games. I don't feel like mentioning it in every entry and the remainder of the article is just going to mention the "deaths" from the games outside the multiversial crossover game.


From Final Fantasy 1 is The Warrior of Light.

The 1st game had a bare bones plot and the didn't have actual main characters with personality, they have generic characters based on jobs/classes. Dissidia have a character based on the Warrior class called, The Warrior of Light.

So how he dies? Well for a game with a barebones plot, it got really complicated at the last minute. The 1st enemy in the game that you killed known as Garland suddenly comes back in the final level. He said the Four Fiends send him back 2000 years in the past while he sent them in the future. He killed the good guys in endless timeloop.(Yeah, Dissidia copied from this).

Did they survive? They defeated Garland and the timeloop is broken.

 Final Fantasy 2 has the rebel, Firion.

The 2nd game had actual names and faces to the characters but their personalities were one dimensional. The main character himself only had less than 10 lines.

So how he dies?  Ehh..He travels to Hell.

The evil emperor that died partway in the game overthrew the devil and took castle of Hell to the living world. Eh yeah, Firion doesn't die at the game's ending.

 Final Fantasy 3 has the Onion Knight.

The third game did went back to nameless faceless characters. However the game allows you to change classes through out the game instead of picking out your party at the beginning of the game. The starting class of the game is Onion Knight.

The DS remake did give them names, faces, and distinct personalities. It didn't change the game's story too much. Dissidia on the other hand went back closer to the original Onion Knight's appearance and gave him a unique personality compare to his DS remake counterparts.

So how they die? The Cloud of Darkness easily killed the heroes during their 1st encounter of her.

Did they survive? The power of friendship revived our heroes. Their allies revived them. The Onion Knights encounter the dark warriors who sacrifice themselves to make the villain vulnerable for our heroes.

 Final Fantasy 4 has the dark knight turned paladin named Cecil.

FF4 is when the series started giving their characters full personalities and deeper plots. Cecil's transformation into a paladin is a sign of his path of redemption to clear his wrongdoings from the 1st hour of the game. 

So how he die? He along with his party were easily killed by Zeromus

Did he survived? By the power of friendship. All their allies at the tower of wishes, excuse me, I mean tower of prayers, prayed for the heroes to revive. Early Nintendo back in the day censored alot religious stuff. The later re-releases of the game change to tower of prayers.

Anyways, Cecil use a crystal that made Zeromus vulnerable for our heroes.

The sequel game, The After Years had a similar event at the final battle. Heroes get easily defeated, the power of friendship and prayers revived our heroes.(Wii-era Nintendo wasn't strict on religious censorship)

 Final Fantasy 5 has the wandering traveler named Bartz.

Bartz was traveling the world when a meteor crashed down nearby. Shortly after, he was tasked to save the four crystals.

So how he died? He was swallowed by the void

Did he survived? At the very end of the ending, he return back to the world.

The interesting thing is that whoever was K.O. in the final battle will be lost in the void and whoever was standing in the final battle be living their life and pondering if their lost comrade(s) will ever return. They did return at the very end. Off course, you can have all allies alive in the final battle.

Final Fantasy 6 is an interesting case. It doesn't has one main character, it has several. The game has this really huge cast. I will discuss the three that comes across as main characters. The first one is the mysterious girl from the empire named Terra.

She was this mysterious girl from the evil empire that was brainwashed to do it's bidding. She got free but has no memories. She somehow uses magic without the use of Esper.

So how she died? With the final boss killed, all the source of world's magic was gone. With the last of her magical powers, Terra use her Esper form and fly away, guiding her friends on a airship out of the collapsing tower. She then ran out of power and reverted into human form and fell to the ground.

Did she survived? The airship went into nosedive and flew straight down. Terra landed safely on the airship. She can now live as a normal human.

The other main characters is the thief..excuse me, treasure hunter called Locke and the opera floozy, I mean former general called Celes.

So how they died? They didn't, it was Terra who "died" in the game's ending.